Sunday, March 30, 2014

MURRAY MOVES ON JAGGER

I didn't know what to expect when I moved, but I knew I would no longer have access to all the old bookstores and thrift stores in my neighborhood. Places I'd spent a decade or more digging in crates, scanning book spines, flipping though vinyl.

It seemed quite possible that the Museum of Stuff would go on indefinite hiatus.

But if you enjoy digging, you're going to find something no matter where you are. There's a fairly unremarkable thrift store near my home, but I recently found all four sequential issues of Astounding Science Fiction (September - December 1957), featuring Robert Heinlein's juvenile novel, Citizen of the Galaxy.

All my old science fiction magazines are in storage, but I was pleased to find these in good condition. I always thought the cover art by H. R. Van Dongen on the September 1957 issue looked like an aging, one-eyed Bill Murray with his hand on a Mick Jagger puppet.

I realize I'm probably the only one.

Astounding Science Fiction (September 1957)

A few weeks later, in Grass Valley, I picked up two copies of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. One issue (February 1957) features Walter M. Miller's "The Last Canticle," the third in a series of stories that would later be published as A Canticle For Leibowitz. The issue also contains new stories by Fredric Brown ("Expedition"), August Derleth ("The Dark Boy"), and Poul Anderson ("Journeys End").

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (February 1957)

The other issue has new stories from Alfred Bester ("Will You Wait?"), Ray Bradbury ("The Shoreline at Sunset"), and the grandfather (pun intended) of all time-travel stories, Robert Heinlein's gender-hopping "All You Zombies--").